Ordering custom upholstered furniture is often done in person because a number of decisions need to be made to process the order. For example, the customer often will choose the specific furniture piece. The selected furniture piece will many times have a specific set of available fabrics and leathers that can be used to upholster it. Based on the selected covering, the required amount of covering needed to upholster the furniture piece can vary depending on the covering type (e.g., fabric or leather), patterns in the fabric, hide inconsistencies, the amount of surface area needed to be covered, etc. Consequently, the selection of fabrics or leathers offered for a particular piece of furniture is often limited. In other cases in which a range of upholstery choices do exist, the overall process is complicated and often requires oral communication with the customer to obtain all the information needed to place the order.
Accordingly, a need exists for methods and systems for ordering custom upholstered furniture. A further need exists for providing such methods and systems to calculate the amount of fabric or leather needed to upholster a selected furniture piece, based on specific characteristics of the piece of furniture and the covering selected. Yet a further need exists to provide an online environment for ordering customized furniture so that a customer does not need to order such furniture in person.